Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VIII/Apocrypha of the New Testament/Christ's Descent into Hell: Latin. Second Version/Chapter 4

by Anonymous

Chapter 4 (20).

And the saints of God heard the wrangling of Satan and Hades.  They, however, though as yet not at all recognising each other, were, notwithstanding, in the possession of their faculties.  But our holy father Adam thus replied to Satan at once:  O captain of death, why dost thou fear and tremble?  Behold, the Lord is coming, who will now destroy all thy inventions; and thou shalt be taken by Him, and bound throughout eternity.

Then all the saints, hearing the voice of our father Adam, how boldly he replied to Satan in all points, were strengthened in joy; and all running together to father Adam, were crowded in one place.  Then our father Adam, gazing on all that multitude, wondered greatly whether all of them had been begotten from him into the world.  And embracing those who were standing everywhere around him, and shedding most bitter tears, he addressed his son Seth, saying:  Relate, my son Seth, to the holy patriarchs and prophets what the guardian of paradise said to thee, when I sent thee to bring to me of that oil of compassion, in order to anoint my body when I was ill.

Then he answered:  I, when thou sentest me before the gates of paradise, prayed and entreated the Lord with tears, and called upon the guardian of paradise to give me of it therefrom.  Then Michael the archangel came out, and said to me, Seth, why then dost thou weep?  Know, being informed beforehand, that thy father Adam will not receive of this oil of compassion now, but after many generations of time.  For the most beloved Son of God will come down from heaven into the world, and will be baptized by John in the river Jordan; and then shall thy father Adam receive of this oil^[1] of compassion, and all that believe in him.  And of those who have believed in him, their kingdom will endure for ever.

Footnotes

1. The text has deo, God, obviously a misprint for oleo, oil.